


Old Habits

by lemonsharks



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Declarations Of Love, Healing, M/M, POV Dorian Pavus, Porn with Feelings, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Use Your Words, adoration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Let's go where a hundred onlookers won't think I'm stealing the Inquisitor's soul."</em>
</p><p>Cadash <em>wants</em> to be seen with Dorian. Wants the world, and the man he loves, to know exactly how lucky he is. (Dorian knows but does not, sometimes, believe it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Habits

**Author's Note:**

> For a bingo square - Deliverance.

Dorian put distance between them, in public. In Val Royeaux he walked yards of plausible deniability behind Cadash, put on the specific face he’d worn so very often in Minrathous. Smiling, smirking, a fount of confidence behind cracked teeth. He said _little_ in public, with ears everywhere, eyes _everywhere_ and the film of what _questions_ might mean for the Inquisition tacky, like old sweat, upon his skin.

 _Retreat to Narias’s suite, minutes apart, with no one there to see_.

Old habits were a staff grip forged close enough to correctly, a pair of shoes one never properly broke in--they pinched. _Don’t ask, don’t_ push _, don’t lose what you_ do _have._

The sea near the city smelled the same as it had back home, full of iodine and warming fish, beneath thick swirled clouds of perfume that trailed in eddies behind important people and the entourages they brought with them. The cafe added notes of bread made more of butter than flour and--he couldn’t smell the candied violets that topped the small confections, but he did roll his eyes at them.

He took his seat diagonal from his--from the Inquisitor, a spot with a view of the apple trees in perpetual fruit and leaves of bushes that would tremble if anything substantial dropped into them.

Narias ordered for their company, and they settled in waiting, watching for mutual friend of Leliana’s and Sera’s. Sera made the kind of jokes that made Cassandra scowl and blush furiously by turn. Narias bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, and Dorian--looked away. _Undue influence,_ and, _unnecessary rumor_ , and the very stern talk he could not stop playing inside his head called, _things we do not need at this very delicate time_.

An elven girl, plain-faced and twitchy, slipped a loose brick from the side of the building across the street and then back in again. She straightened and smoothed her skirts and walked back the way she’d come with her chin up and her nose in the air. She really wasn’t very good at subterfuge.

“It is,” he said as she passed by the table, loudly enough he knew she’d hear, “About _damned_ time.”

The table had run out of chicken, green salad, _and_ petit fours, though the wine had not yet run dry.

“Oi, _you_ try shirking work when miss prissybottom would have you switched if she found out you’d been where you shouldn’t. Things take howeverlong they do.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take a pass on that,” he replied, into the span where Narias rose and returned as if he’d disappeared from sight entirely.

  


The Inquisition had a set of rooms on permanent reserve at one of the better hotels in Val Royeaux. They did well, to have the Inquisitor seen there, and the Inquisition did likewise, to sleep in proper beds between weeks on horseback and to have a proper headquarters in the Orlesian capitol.

Dorian found Narias waiting for him in his room, which was a feat considering he’d been chest deep in spies when Dorian had left the group. Narias had splayed his fingers across the short, tight curls on his scalp and looked as though he might burn the world down himself if it displeased him one more time.

If he’d been anywhere close to retiring for the evening, it should not have been to here.

Dorian’s own request, that they maintain separate quarters while out and about. For the greater good. He hated the greater _fucking_ good rather a lot.

“You spent the entire afternoon just outside my reach,” Narias said, sliding down from his seat on the divan.

“I will admit to a most noble sacrifice on my part--mmph!”

Things one learns growing up in the Carta: how to get a man on his knees, apparently.

Dorian leaned into the kiss, into warm hands on his forearms, into Cadash, who might very well consume him alive and whole, and what a way to go that would be. He took Dorian’s lower lip between his teeth, into his mouth, and _sucked_. Dorian’s throat and lungs constricted, breath of a sudden _gone_ , and he made a sound somewhere between groan and croak.

What had happened to him, that one touch, one _kiss_ , lips and nips with teeth and fingernails against his scalp could leave him with all the higher faculties transmuted into a gelatinous puddle on the ground?

Dorian pulled away for a breath, because otherwise he might actually expire.

“I thought you had--” Dorian leaned in, kissed the corner of his mouth, behind his ear, beneath his jaw--got a mouthful of beard and didn’t have two damns to give, “--hmph, business to attend--”

“I told them,” he said, “That I was going to meet my lover for a glass of wine. I lied. There is no wine.”

“And _what_ will the Val Royeaux gossips think of _that_?”

Narias tugged him forward, almost toppled both of them over, and grunted. He took Dorian’s shirt in his hands and pulled him for another hungry kiss, this one slower, tongue in his mouth, between his lips and teeth, and Dorian’s hands everywhere at once before he settled them onto Narias’s arse and kneaded, fingertips and thumbs over cool linen and flushed flesh.

He called out; Dorian swallowed the sound before he broke the kiss and pulled away.

“The question is,” Narias said, “What do _you_ think of it?”

Too much, every day. Every apprehensive look cast upon either one of them bored into his thoughts, his _soul_. He saw them, he _had_ to, because doing was always so much more difficult than saying.

Dorian swallowed, stood, never letting his eyes leave Narias’s. Rich, deep brown like the rest of him, with a ruddy tint that warmed him all over. The loveliest eyes he had seen in a very, very long time.

_More_.

More meant: something enduring, something to be cared for, protected. (Kept safely out of reach of those who might do harm).

He said, “That your reputation won’t come away from our--this--unsullied. It wouldn’t do for all of Orlais to think I’ve enchanted you, now would it?”

“I _want_ to be seen with you! And you’re making it _damned_ difficult with the polite-- _what_?”

“Say that again.”

“What?”

“Please, I--”

Narias unbuckled the belt around his waist, slipped the leather through their loops and cast the offending article off, onto the carpeted floor.

“I want to be _seen_ with you,” he said. “I want you on the bed and out of that ridiculous--I want to _show_ you. You think I’m _ashamed_ of us, _afraid_ , for us? I’m _insulted_ you’d imply it.”

“I worry for you, Amatus--”

“Because they built _worry_ into your nature--”

“-- _They_ did no such thing--”

“--So that’s all you, then?”

Dorian slipped out of shoes and buckles, shucked his trousers, underclothes and coat. His breath hitched and his cock bobbed before him, stealing away every drop of blood that should have been reserved for things like _higher thought_.

The witty rejoinder he had tucked away _somewhere_ came out a as hiccup.

“I will not stand for this slander,” he said. _There it is_.

Kept his voice light and his shoulders back, though the spot between his lungs seized and roiled as it sometimes had when he was a star-struck apprentice. He did _not_ come off-balance, did not stumble, did not do a lot of things and yet, here he was, naked and--he did _not_ tremble.

“I care for you,” Narias said, stepping forward, toward him.

The bed hit the backs of Dorian’s knees, and he sat. Leaned down, caught Narias’s lips again, hands on the sides of his face, thumbs in his beard, beneath his chin. He smelled of clary sage, of fresh water, soft from the morning’s oiling and combing.

Did his tattoos continue down beneath the braids? Things Dorian did not know, had not asked.

“I know you do, I--I--am--”

 _Used to hiding the important things_. Allowing the world to think what they would. To make the assumptions they wished to make. One more gift from his fatherland.

“It’s _insidious,_ ” Dorian said, pulling back. “The impulse to put things out of sight--of all the things I thought I’d gotten rid of.” His breath caught, and he turned it into a laugh. High. A little on the side of hysterics.

“The that’s the first reasonable thing,” Narias said, and moved back toward him, kissed his shoulder, “You have said--,” and downward, the spot above Dorian’s heart. “All _day._ ”

“This,” he tapped the spot he’d kissed, “and this,” he did the same to Dorian’s temple, “Do you know how perfect you are to me, how maddening it is to be near you?”

“I’ve heard something to the effect once or twice.”

“Shut _up_ \--” he said. Ran his hands down Dorian’s arms, held their palms mirrored against one another. “And _let_ \--” The mark was warm, something he’d noticed a few times but not investigated further, and his cock ached with a ferocity now. “--Me _finish_.”

He kissed his way down Dorian’s belly with murmured words lost in skin.

“Do you know how lucky I am?”

“I’ve an--”

Hand on his mouth, gently, long enough Dorian stopped.

“I never imagined, never _thought_ I might _hope_ to meet someone like you,” he said.

Bruised Dorian’s pelvic bone with his mouth; Dorian cried out.

“Do you _know_?” Narias asked.

He nodded and raked his fingers across Narias’s scalp.

Kneeling, Narias dug his fingers into the backs of Dorian’s calves, trailed kisses from the inside of his knee up onto his thighs.

“ _Please_ \--!”

And still nowhere near his straining cock, arched and aching. He shifted his hips upward, into nothing. Narias pushed them down again.

“Do you know you make me laugh when I’m sure the world is ending? Hold _still_.”

“I _can’t_ , I--”

 _Couldn’t_ what _? Believe his good fortune? Believe be_ deserved _to be seen, know the world could think what it would that Narias Cadash loved_ him _?_

“I want to be _seen_ with you,” he said, and again, “I want to be seen with _you_.”

“Amatus--”

“Do you _know_?”

His breath hitched, and he nodded, keened when that silk and velvet mouth descended on his cock. Narias took the base of the shaft in one hand and squeezed, an easy rhythm, archer’s calluses rough and perfect against the top side.

He moved his head in rhythm with his hand, up and down, for long moments. Curled his tongue along the underside of Dorian’s cock, pulled a whimper from his throat. He finished the upstroke and moved away, licked his lips and met Dorian’s eyes.

 _Adoration_.

“ _Venhedis_ ,” Dorian whispered, and then nodded once.

“Are you lying?”

“Do you think I _could,_ in the state you have me in?”

“Good point,” he said, smugly.

He returned to Dorian’s cock. He slipped his tongue beneath the foreskin and _licked_ , swirled, hard--every nerve in Dorian’s body fired, throat and fingers contracting. He made a keening moan while Narias kept up with this _very new exciting trick_ , enough, too much, _perfect._

There were bands around his heart and lungs, tightening with each lick, each breath in Narias took, and he couldn’t. He let his head fall back, and spilled, felt Narias swallow around him, felt him draw back after a long while, the air cool on his cock. Sweat had beaded up from his skin, on his chest, down his sternum and beneath his taut nipples.

He breathed. It was more difficult than it ought to have been.

Narias leaned back, shins flat against the carpet, hands flat against his spread thighs. His own cock strained against his trousers.

Muddle-headed, Dorian said, “Your turn.”

It was a damned miracle he kept his voice from shaking. Too badly.

“Later,” he said. “I’m not finished with you.”

  


There _was_ a later, that lasted all afternoon and into the evening. Someone knocked politely on the door at one point, and left a tray of food and cool drinks outside. They let supper go cold.

Narias lay on his belly on the rumpled sheets, one arm slung over Dorian’s shoulders, the other beneath his chin. His beard was rumpled, and one braid had started to come undone. Dorian smiled, and sighed--he must look a mess, as well. _The best kind of well-fucked mess_.

“Did you know,” Narias said quietly, “I thought, _this man is too good to be true_. _He’ll look right over my head and never even see me_.”

Dorian laughed, a short puff of exhaled breath. “How exceptionally incorrect _that_ turned out to be.”

“Now that I’ve become acquainted with your flaws--”

“Ha!”

“--I still think I’m bound to _wake up_. I’m thankful for every moment I don’t. This life is _my life_ , and you make me glad it’s real. Every moment of it.”

And there was that twist and flip in his chest again, the words too sleepy, too clumsy, for mere platitudes. A warmth spread through him, at once familiar and strange. One he had known so many times with his Inquisitor, one that did not feel like the last he might ever see.

“You’ll make me insufferable with your flattery,” Dorian said.

“Too late.”

They were quiet for a time, breath slow and counterpoint to one another. At last, Narias continued, “I want the entire world to know how happy you make me. Why have you been…?”

“Pulling away, where people might see?”

“Yes.”

One might fuck his friends in Tevinter, and one might love his friends as well, though generally not the same friends and certainly not at the same time. _That_ you kept out of sight, _that_ you--left hidden, if not for your sake then for your lover’s.

He wondered idly whether he would ever be fully free of such things.

“Old habits,” he said, too tired to explain in full.

“Mmm,” Narias replied. “And will you let me help you break them?”

Dorian thought for a moment, of the warmth here that he might know everywhere. It made his head light, and he had spoken before he knew the words had left his mouth.

“I will.”


End file.
